Barney Frank hopes archive sparks appreciation of UMD, SouthCoast

DARTMOUTH — The papers, recordings and other artifacts that encapsulate former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's political career sit in boxes — about 500 of them.

MICHAEL GAGNE

DARTMOUTH — The papers, recordings and other artifacts that encapsulate former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's political career sit in boxes — about 500 of them.

Frank, who retired from politics in 2012, last year donated those boxes to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where an archive of that collection is expected to be indexed and open in a few years.

The goal of that archive, according to the university, is to promote the study of those national issues in which Frank played a major role during his three decades in Washington. Those issues include financial reform, gay rights, consumer protection, commercial fishing, immigration, housing and environmental protection.

Frank, who last Monday night visited UMass Dartmouth to attend a private fundraising event for the effort, said he hoped students and scholars would be able to access the collection.

"I hope they will be useful for scholars and a point of attention for the region and the university," Frank said.

Frank said the collection "should be helpful to scholars" looking at the financial crisis of 2008 and those looking at the decades of debates in Washington over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

Frank said he "was personally involved, up to now, in every debate about LGBT issues ever in the House of Representatives, but one in the 70s."

The collection also includes immigration policy discussions that occurred during the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Frank, who has long been in favor of providing amnesty for undocumented immigrants, said while his record doesn't address the current issue of "unfortunate children" reaching the border, it does look at the larger discussion of providing amnesty to those individuals who enter the U.S. illegally, or offering them a means to legalized status and citizenship.

He said the decision to house the collection at UMass Dartmouth, instead of a larger university or even his alma mater, Harvard University, was "deliberate."

Frank said he wanted to see his collection located "in a part of the state that's been very good to me, and I think, a part of the state that has been somewhat neglected. It's a wonderful area."

Frank said he hoped scholars would come to appreciate UMass Dartmouth and the SouthCoast.

Frank has spent his post-political life as a frequent contributor on cable news networks, including MSNBC and CNBC, and has been finishing a memoir, which he said will be published March 18. He has also been writing a weekly column for the Portland Press Herald.

The effort to preserve and index Frank's archives is expected to take about three years, and will require a full-time archivist.

Fundraising began in March, with an event in Boston that included former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who at the time said the collection would "be a rich and valuable resource for both future policy makers and the public at large."